Willow Springs

ABOUT

Willow Springs has been publishing out of Eastern Washington University's creative writing program in Spokane since 1977, making it one of the longer-running academic literary magazines in the Pacific Northwest. It runs poetry, fiction, and essays alongside author interviews and profiles, and has built a reputation for landing substantial conversations with established writers — recent issues have featured interviews with Mary Ruefle, Kathleen Flenniken, and Leigh Newman. The magazine is tied closely to EWU's MFA program, giving it institutional continuity even as guest interviewers and staff rotate.

The journal appears to run on a semiannual schedule, with issues numbered sequentially (95 in spring 2025, 96 in fall 2025, 97 in spring 2026) rather than tied to calendar quarters. Beyond regular submissions, Willow Springs runs a dedicated "Surrealist Prize" contest, promoted on its homepage, for poets and prose writers working in that mode — worth checking for specific entry fees and deadlines since these aren't listed on the front page. No submission fee, pay rate, or current editor names are stated on the site itself, so writers should consult the magazine's submissions page directly (linked from the main site) before sending work, rather than relying on secondhand information about compensation or reading periods.